As Cosmopolitan’s professional agony aunt for the last forty years, Irma Kurtz has had to deal with the most intimate problems of successive generations of readers, while having to keep up with the changing mores and attitudes in British and American society.

In her new memoir, she looks back on the seismic transformations that have taken place over the last four decades, as well as her own hectic and often difficult life as a single mum from America living in London.Warm, funny and perceptive, brimming with wisdom and insight, My Life in Agony is a meditation on the subjects that tend to concern and confuse us the most – from mother-daughter relationships through to eating disorders, office politics and those perennial areas of interest: love and sex.

Born in New Jersey, Irma Kurtz took a degree in English Literature and then travelled around Europe before finally settling in London. There she joined the brand-new Cosmopolitan magazine and launched its iconic agony-aunt column, which she then also wrote for the American edition. Irma has written two novels, three travel books and three self-help books, including the critically acclaimed About Time: Growing Old Disgracefully.